


To Run and Hide from Fear

by orphan_account



Category: Original Work
Genre: Death of friend, F/F, Hard friendships, Strained Relationships, Understanding how to comprehend death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-07-30 18:00:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20101330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Trish has found herself in the middle of a new environment. As soon as she moves out of her old home of New Jersey, she realizes that her new home is not what she expected.





	1. Chapter 1

August 12, 2017  
I won’t hide it. I’m sad. I don’t want to leave behind this home, but I know that I don’t have a choice. This is the only chance Mom gets at her new job. It’s actually kind of frightening to think about; she’s actually starting to go back to work again! After so long of just sitting there in the middle of the home, just moping around, she finally actually gets to experience the world herself. Mom sort of talked about becoming her own agent; for once she doesn’t have to rely on other people’s help, which is good.  
But I can’t help but look back at New Jersey. Woodbury is always going to have a place inside my heart, and end up going to, I hope that it could be even better.  
It’s as my mother always said, Look to the future and not the past.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess you can say that this is like a journal. The entries range from being both long and short.

August 13 2017  
Still in the process of driving. Sometimes I wonder how Mom is able to support herself so well—sometimes I can’t even tell how she manages to do it. She still hasn’t told me where we’re going.  
“It’s a surprise,” she said, but I get this feeling that she’s just saying that because she’s afraid I am going to be disappointed. I tried to tell her it was ok to let me known where we were—as a matter of fact I would prefer it, but she refused to respond.  
That’s how it’s been ever since Dad left us, and we’ve been doing our best to adapt. It isn’t easy being two women struggling to make it through with our lives.  
“Actually it’s me that’s trying to take care of you,” Mom said.  
Ok, so maybe it’s more like one woman trying to take care of a girl.


	3. Chapter 3

August 19, 2017  
I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to move. I’m scared. What is this going to be like? I shudder, but I can’t hide. I can’t go back to being a six year old and try to hide out inside of the closet. If I were to do that, my mother would find me.  
But if only there was a hiding place that I could really settle down in. I haven’t even gotten the chance to be able to get used to the environment around me. Oh well, I guess sometimes I don’t really have control over anything that happens around me.  
Who knows? Maybe starting over isn’t so bad after all. Maybe it really is possible for me to truly adapt to the rest of this new place. I’m not sure if I quite hate it already. Mom and I tried a new restaurant. The pizza doesn’t seem so bad. I mean, I haven’t even tried this place out yet.


	4. Chapter 4

August 20, 2017  
I expected the people here to be really strange; however, I wasn’t expecting them to be this weird…  
Maybe that’s too much of a generalization. Most of the people here are pretty normal, but there is one person that really caught my eye in particular.  
She sat in a tree with her hair tied back. She looked over at me, and I swear that for the first time our eyes came into contact.  
“Hello,” she said. “You’re probably the first person that has ever really noticed me up here in the tree.” For some reason, when she told me that line I felt embarrassed. I thought that I had disrupted in something important, but she swung down from the tree and propped herself right in front of me.  
“Who are you?” I asked.  
“I’m Alexis,” the girl said. I moved my hand over to her’s for a shake; however, the girl did not return the move. Her face was stoic as that of a troll rolling around in the middle of the garden. Inside her hand was a bell.  
“So what be your name?” she asked. I looked at her in that awkward way.   
“Trish,” I said.   
“Trish, such a name I have not heard of,” Alexis said, putting her head on top of the palm of her hand. “Tell me, Trish, what brings you all the way to the middle of this neighborhood?” I stood there completely flabbergasted by the question. One thousand questions ran through my head. Does this girl go to the school? What’s going on? She cupped my hands together. Inside my palm I could feel a bell fall onto my palm.  
“Whatever it may be, I thought you might be the one.”   
The bus rolled by. “See ya!” she said as she ran into the bus with the rest of the kids. I looked down at the bell inside my hand. My confused face turned into a smile as I placed the trinket inside of my pocket. I climbed into the bus with a little bit more confidence than before.  
Alexis and I talked about a lot of things. I used all of the social skills that I had learned from my mother to the best of my own disposal.  
“I’ve been living here for about a year,” she said as she took some time to thnk about it.  
“I’ve only lived here for a couple days,” I said. “Thanks for stepping in to be my friend; I was worried that I was going to be left alone.”  
“Yeah, it can get pretty tough trying to make friends,” said Alexis. “That’s why I thought you were the perfect one to join me in my quest to find the diamond bell.”  
“The diamond bell?” And with that, Alexis explained everything that I needed to know—how the bell that I held carried a vast amount of power, power that could only be yielded by specific people.  
“They tend to be very few and far between,” she said. “But something about you made me think you were the perfect fit.”  
I didn’t think about anything else that day. All I could think about was the acceptance I had received from Alexis. I gripped the bell inside my hand as I sat in class. When I sat in class, I gripped the bell with a force that made me feel empowered.  
“Hey, we should hang out some more,” she said. I replied we should. At dinner, I told my mom everything about how I had made a brand new friend to the bell. She said it was delightful.  
All day, I couldn’t focus on my homework, for I stared at the bell with my hands, constantly ringing it over and over again.


	5. Chapter 5

\ September 9, 2017  
I couldn’t get up from my sleep this morning. No matter how hard I tried, I found that my body almost felt like it was glued to the bed. I twisted and turned, fighting against the powers that kept me glued on top of the mattress of the bed.  
But they kept me down, preventing me from ever getting up. I stared at the ceiling above me, wondering if I am ever going to get used to a place like this.  
“Trish, are you getting ready?” my mother called. I turned away. The covers concealed most of my body. I hear that weighty covers really help when you are struggling with sleep. Might want to bring that up or mention that some time if I ever get the chance.  
“Trish, have you eaten breakfast?” she called again. I checked the time. 10:27. It was a weekend. I pulled the covers over me, completely covering everything of my body.  
***  
“Trish, don’t forget to change out of your clothes,” my mother said when she saw that I was wearing the same exact clothes from last week.   
“Mom, I think I’m going to be fine,” I replied. “Wearing the same exact clothes for a couple of days is ok.” My mother smiled. I smiled back. We all smiled. Nobody wants to reveal how you were really feeling when you woke up not wanting to get out of bed. Sometimes it’s best that you keep something like that a secret.  
“What’s that?” my mother asked when she saw the bell on the table.   
“It’s something that my friend bought for me,” I said. “By the way, I think I might head over to her house today.”  
“Head over to her house? But honey, you never even told me that you were going to…” But my mother stopped.  
“Sorry, Mom, but I’ve gotta get moving with getting used to this new area,” I said as I scarfed down an English muffin down my throat.  
“Fine, go,” my mother said. “Like I really care what is going to happen to you.”  
***  
Going over to Alexis’ house really wasn’t all that I had expected it to be, but at least it was better than just sitting alone up in your room.  
I mean, she really did have quite a collection of all those bells. Some of them had dents in the middle of them, others had red stripes running down them.  
“Here I have a lot of different bells that come in all shapes and sizes,” she said as she showed me the display. “I’ve collected them over an expanse of time.”  
“Cool, where did you get them?”  
“The Pixie darters gave them to me, but there is one bell I am still waiting for.” She pointed to the one missing slot to the right of the case. There it sat among all the other bells—empty, silent without a single bearer that could possibly fill its place.”  
What happened next was totally a split-turn of events.  
“Come on, quickly, we need to get out there and head to the next station on the second tree to the right!” she said. She climbed out the window and slid down the roof. I did the same. Her mother was probably ok if she did this kind of stuff.  
We hurried along the pines that the trees had been shedding. Out in the midst I could see that Alexis had taken me to a completely different place. The pines on the trees had shed all of their pines on the ground. Alexis picked up some of them.  
“Here, take two of these,” she said. I took two of the brown needles. “We must wave these around to summon the fairies.”  
“Ok, now you’re getting wacky,” I said, but perhaps she hadn’t heard me, for she waved the needles in the air. Nothing really came. I told her that I thought that I was about done with this game, and maybe the two of us could do something that was more real.  
“I mean, not that make-believe is fake,” I said. “It’s not like I don’t think it’s fun. I just…want to do something that is actually real.”  
“You mean like everyone else?”  
“Yeah, like that.” As soon as I said that, I wanted to cover my mouth. She walked off, without saying too much of a word. Mother asked what happened when I got home. Kept the pine needles though. Kept them inside of a safe place for safe-keeping. The bell sort of just sat there in the middle of my desk. I kept them all because they were what I had left of the very first friendship that I had. I could only hope that that friendship was not going to break any time soon. I panicked a little when I thought about that.


	6. Chapter 6

September 22, 2017  
Every day I always want to go back to the past, but no matter how hard I try, I realize that I just can’t seem to do it.  
My mother tells me that I need to let go of the past, but I’m tired of the fact that we have to keep moving over and over in order to settle down an income.  
I guess I’ll just try my best to do something, I thought. My mother was able to find a new church. I fell asleep as I usually do when the sermon came on. The priest gets kinda boring.  
But the bells tolling at the top of the bell tower reminded me of Alexis’ bell. I felt bad over how I had treated her. I just think that the whole make-believe worlds to me is just really stupid and not very fun.  
I still kept the bell inside my pocket. It was the first sign I ever had of friendship.  
September 29, 2017  
Sat alone again at lunch. Feels kind of strange when there are tons of people around me. Wish I could communicate better with the people around me; however, I guess if they really just want to stay away from me and not talk, then I guess that is fine.  
It feels so empty when I just sit alone. It feels like I just don’t have what it takes to really live inside of this place. My mom told me that I need to move on, but who cares about what people think? Who really cares?  
“Hey, Trish,” I turned around to see Alexis coming to sit with me. I guess she really hadn’t abandoned me like I had initially thought.  
“Hi, Alexis,” I replied. Before she could say anything, she embraced me in a big hug.   
Words can’t describe what love feels like.  
***   
I walked into class a little bit late. I started drawing some pictures when my teacher wasn’t looking. Most of these consisted of hearts. After I had finished drawing, I looked at the final product of my work.   
On it there were two girls holding hands. A heart surrounded them.  
I don’t know where it came from. I felt ashamed that I had done something like this. My mother would not approve of something like this.  
I tucked the picture away into my pocket.   
I rushed into my home. I didn’t acknowledge my mother—actually I’m not even sure if my mother was even there—and walked all the way up to my room. I placed the picture on top of my desktop.  
I had no idea what had just gone through my head. Everything felt like a blur.


End file.
